On the road again…

“And so, the coin was thrown in the air, turning many times, landing sometimes heads and other times tails.” - Ernesto Che Guevara.

In thinking how to recount my week in Lima, already the week before last, it’s difficult to know where to even start so I’ll just go back to the beginning. I hadn’t planned to stay more than a few nights before heading on but since I negotiated for a free week’s stay at the hostel if I worked the bar a few nights I decided a couple more days to rest and plan couldn’t hurt. In truth I didn’t do much of either as I ended up befriending several other travelers among the ever changing hostel gaggle. My first night on bar duty, Tuesday, I started chatting with a lovely young couple, he from England and she Scotland, a frenchwoman by way of Germany, an Englishman, a Canadian and a Californian, the last of which whom had become something of a staple at the hostel as he’d been staying there in exchange for language lessons since unfortunately being mugged of his passport and bank cards. 

The next morning some of us reconnected at breakfast and decided to all walk down to Miraflores together as I recommended they see the ruins there and I was itching to try my luck at surfing in the Peruvian pacific. Back in the room, I met another newly arrived bunkmate, also from England, whom I convinced to come along on the journey and even though she had just flown in that morning she was up for the adventure. The best thing about hostels is you never know who you’re going to meet or where it’s going to lead and I couldn’t have been happier that I extended the invite because after a night of fruitless recruiting I finally had a surfing buddy. 

Even though Miraflores is a neighborhood within Lima proper, it’s a solid hour/hour and a half walk but it buildings all become a blur when you’re walking and talking with newfound friends. We moseyed on down like a gringo parade, escorted the others to the ruins and then parted ways. Quite different from Philly’s grid layout, Lima is a hot mess of ever-changing roads and disorienting avenues that are even harder to navigate when you’re lost in conversation. Needless to say Sanchia and I got a bit turned around on our way to the beach originally but managed to get ourselves back on track. Once at the coast though we encountered another obstacle of getting down to sea level from the 500 or so meter coastal cliff drop and since the normal walkway was under construction we found the detour and continued down. 

Once at the bottom we were immediately greeted by Manuel and Josef, the guys at the first tent on the rocky beach. We agreed on a price, slipped into some wetsuits, grabbed our boards and headed out. The beach was completely without sand and was instead littered with gorgeous, rounded stones of varying sizes, colors and patterns. The water was bitingly cold or simply “refreshing” as Manuel put it and after a few tries of my ever-problematic lower back spasming I was finally able to work through the pain, stand up and even ride a few waves. Gnarly. After the surf, Sanchia and I walked down to Barranco, another Lima neighborhood just south of Miraflores that also borders the coast and found a restaurant: a bit of fried calamari for me, spaghetti and sauce for her and pilsners for us both. Lost in scintillating conversation and good food the two and a half hours I had before having to return to work the hostel bar suddenly transformed into 15 minutes. On the street we decided to grab a taxi back for only 10 soles, making it back by the skin of my teeth!

Working the bar in Lima was basically like hanging out and drinking with my newfound hostel mates, only I was getting free accommodations for pouring the drinks as well as consuming them. Not a bad gig as I said before, but dangerous in that I ended up drinking more than I probably would have otherwise. After shutting down the bar that night, we all went out for more drinks and ended up at a Peruvian karaoke bar in Lince, located between central Lima and Miraflores, where we sand and danced with some older Peruvian ladies who were very serious about their karaoke. It was an absolute blast, but unfortunately for me the later it got, the more stuffed up my nose became and I could feel an unavoidable illness coming on. 

Nevertheless, we closed down the karaoke bar and ventured across the street to a casino where we had just one beer more and collectively played a few rounds of roulette, or rather where the two irishmen Dara and John played a few rounds while the rest of the lot drunkenly observed. By the time we started back toward the hostel it was about six in the morning and the sun was just beginning to breach the horizon. Needless to say, I awoke only three or so hours later to an utterly debilitating cold, the contracted bug compounded by my stupidity and want to partake in the shenanigans of the previous evening. I would be stuck in bed more or less for two days before reviving, unfortunately not in time for the “splurge” reservations the jolly Californian cicerone and fellow foodie, Patrick, and I had made for a restaurant in Miraflores owned by world-renowned Le Cordon Bleu chef Gastón Acurio.

However we still managed to get our fill of Peruvian delicacies the next day, my last day in Lima, at Mistura, an epic food festival held annually in on of Lima’s coastal districts. There we exchanged our already colorful soles for even more colorful festival monopoly money and perused the many tents featuring every type of Peruvian cuisine imaginable. Lima is known for it’s culinary scene throughout South America and the festival eats were no exception. I split some ceviche, quinoa veggie burger, chicken gyro with Pat and Alex, one of two english gals that replaced some of the others who had moved on. The ceviche here is mush more simple than that of the decadent interpretations found in Philly, served in a simple citrus-fish cure with sliced red onions, herbs, a slice of sweet potato, toasted corn nuts and cooked corn, the tender lump cuts of fish are something to behold. The peruvian yellow corn (as there are a variety of kinds) is also like none found in the states- large, thick and starchy is no surprise that it’s a dietary staple here. Certainly a world of difference compared to the New Jersey sweet corn I’d usually be chowing down on all summer. 

Walking around we were able to also sample a variety of meats where we thought we had unintentionally had our first bit of alpaca, which turned out to be tapir, an incredibly stringy, gamey eat. At the festival was also “Beer World” with a small exhibition of beer equipment, steins, and old labels/ads. Inside was a large stage with a an enthusiastic emcee sporting a blue sequined blazer and quite a mullet, surrounded by pop up bars of various brews, mostly the popular labels of Cuzqueña, Pilsen, San Juan and a rare few local Peruvian craft brews. 

As the festival began to wind down, we left beer world to explore the food market a bit more where we sampled coffees and chocolates before all six of us piled into a taxi, doubled up on laps and limbs, back to the hostel. The night was still young though and once back at the hostel, five of us decided we weren’t done yet and headed south, ending up at our infamous karaoke bar from the other night where we loaded up the machine with songs, ordered a few pitchers of cheap lager and got down to business. We carried on in ridiculous, drunken tones while my still-ill voice strained to keep the melody, finishing with an epic group rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody joined by a group of local guys. Afterward the group parted ways and Pat, Alex and I grabbed a ‘combi’ bus back north to the hostel where, this time, I was snuggly in bed by a much more reasonable hour of 3 am. Not a bad note to leave Lima on.

I’m going back to where I started…

I find myself back in Peru’s dreary, fog-engulfed capital city after just under two weeks in the central highland town of Pichanaki and can’t help still feeling bewildered by the experience, but I’m getting ahead of myself, let me rewind and recount some events to catch you up on my time in this little coffee town. My journey really began two weekends ago when I walked down to the neighborhood of La Victoria within Lima to purchase my bus ticket. What should have been about an hour’s walk along a main artery through Lima turned out to be an adventure in and of itself as I took a turn too early and ended up lost among the poorly marked streets of some construction supply district full of dust-covered men hauling around large pipes, glass panes and other things who stopped in their tracks to see a befuddled gringa walking down the street.

Taking wrong turn after wrong turn I finally stopped and worked up the courage to ask for directions from a nice enough looking security man who ended up not quite knowing where I was trying to go but pointed me in a direction anyhow. I walked around the corner and asked a saw a young couple approaching so I asked them for help. They walked with me a while and then told me to wait on the corner where we had ended up, that the bus stopped there and that was where I could get on. Good enough advice, except that they were talking about a small ‘colectivo’ bus and I was looking to buy a ticket in advance for a larger and I hoped safer bus. I walked some more, asked some more to no a avail until I finally found a cab driver who knew more or less what I was looking for. We agreed on a price that I knew was too expensive but I was tired of feeling painfully lost and didn’t feel like negotiating so I got in and off we went. Once on the road he got to making small talk and asked all the cab driver questions: Where was I from? Why was I in Peru? Did I like it? How did it compare to my city? And finally, did I have a boyfriend or was I looking for one?

Once at the bus station I purchased my ticket and sat for a minute to let my thoughts settle and drink some of my safe, hostel-boiled water from my grimy bottle before forcing myself back up on my aching legs to head back to the center of town. I had told myself that if I walked there I would consider rewarding my efforts with a bus ride back, but seeing as I blew money on a cab already, I decided to hoof it back as well. In truth I didn’t mind the walk and aside from the pollution and constant glares and catcalls, it offered an interesting view of the city. I was lucky enough to stumble on some great graffiti pieces along the way as an added bonus which I snapped and filed away on my camera phone. I had brought my camera for the walk but decided against whipping it out in such unsavory neighborhoods where I already stood out like white cotton in a purple cotton field. 

Two evenings later I stood outside my hostel in the typical crisp, mist-filled Lima night air with my giant pack, daypack and ukulele to hail a cab to the bus. A dinky, dent-covered car with flaking red paint pulled over and the man behind the wheel asked where I was going. 

When I told him he seemed unsure but some clarification led me to believe we’d find our way there. He ended up being the nicest, most sincere cab driver I had found yet, but unfortunately I did not understand when he gave his name the first time or the second and felt ashamed to ask for it a third. Instead I heartily shook his hand and thanked him repeatedly every time he told me to take care. Inside the station I waited with my bags in a heap while other Peruvians trickled in to wait as well. A short while later a monstrous double decker bus, the likes of a giant caterpillar, pulled in, we boarded and departed. For 40 soles or about 15USD the reclining, cushioned seats were quite nice albeit this thisclose to one another. Eleven hours of overnight winding, veering and swerving along mountain roads later we arrived in Pichanaki, a trip that I was told would take closer to seven hours but who’s counting. I was glad to be in and out of sleep for much of the drive and unable to see just how eerily close to the edges of roads we were in the dark, but as the sun rose in the morning it was nice to see the never-ending mountainous lumps that multiplied in the distance and river valley below. 

The bus emptied us out on the side of the main road and the man unloading cargo dumped my pack in a pile of grease from a street vendor when I handed him my stub. Thankfully in Pichanaki I was met by the farm host, Juan Carlos, and his daughter perched on the back of his motorcycle, who had me shove my bags into a small motor taxi and drove what ended up being only a few blocks to the apartment that I could have easily walked to but for 1 sole, I didn’t mind the ride. My left knee was still reeling from all the various crunched up ways I had positioned myself on the bus in a failed effort to find a comfortable position. I was grateful for not having to find a public phone to contact him and also slightly saddened that my recently memorized phrases for the imaginary phone conversation would now drift away into the periphery of my mind’s language department, unused.

At the apartment I had barely set my bags down before I was thrown a smelly polo shirt with the word ‘Enamorate,’ or ‘fall in love,’ splashed across the back and told we needed to leave right away to meet the coffee judges in the main plaza for a ride to the farm. You see, I arrived just as the annual coffee festival was kicking off and the judges were going to the farm to evaluate it and there was strength in smelly black polo numbers. So I quickly changed and walked to the plaza with two girls from Belgium who had been working there for a month to catch our ride. Once we got there we were told by a mutual acquaintance to wait for them at the tourism booth so we went over and waited. We waited and waited and I couldn’t help but feel annoyed at all the things I could have been doing while we did so like shower, have a small bite to eat or take a light nap as the sleep on the bus was anything but restoring. Finally someone came over and told us to follow him to another location where we waited another hour or so before the judges pulled up to the stoplight in a pickup truck and told us to hurry get in the truck bed as the light changed. 

The drive to the farm was about an hour long trek along incredibly curvy uphill, downhill, rough, trench filled ‘roads’ that strained even the 4wheel drive. Juan Carlos met us at the farm with some of his family members to show us the various coffee plants, processing area, compost and main house where we drank the most naturally sweet, fresh squeezed orange juice and ate plantain marmalade filled crepes, followed by coffee, naturally. After some more explanation about the farm we all loaded back in the truck and on motorbikes to go down to a cascade nearby. The paths became muddier and more difficult as we went down so much so that we had to fill in giant sink hole ditches with sticks and other found objects in order to cross, but the chillingly refreshing waterfall at the end was definitely worth it.   

The days and week following were spent, not on the farm, but in town at the apartment stressfully running around trying to prepare our products for the coffee festival. There wasn’t a day where I woke up knowing what lay ahead or was expected of me and it seemed every time I managed to pry a plan out of Juan Carlos, it inevitably changed before coming to fruition so I gave up on trying and tried to go along with the chaos as best I could. Most of my time in Pichanaki was spent being dragged around to hang out with Juan’s friends and peddling coffee infused baked goods instead of working on a farm as I had thought I would which led to my decision to leave early. For as little work as I did, the experience was utterly exhausting. I’m not necessarily one for planning myself, I bought a one-way ticket to another country with a very loose, ever changing game plan, but in this case some organization and order would have made a world of a difference. 

More than anything though my decision to leave was fueled by an overly confident Juan Carlos trying to make awkward and inappropriate advances with me; the south american machismo mentality is very much alive and well or more appropriately put, there are assholes everywhere and the first WWOOF farm I picked just happened to be run by one. Which is not to say that I didn’t also have some enjoyable times in Pichanaki, there were definitely some gems in there and some amazing people, but as often as I would find myself savoring a sugary sweet moment his actions would replace my bliss with the sharp, unsavory taste of fear that has a way of lingering far longer than any honeyed happiness. 

So I find myself back in Lima to plot my next moves after a brief excursion to the little highland coffee capital and couldn’t have been happier to be greeted by the bleak, all-encompassing, fog-filled sky and the comfort of my hostel home. I’ll check in with more stories and future plans but for now I’m due to tend bar here at the hostel in exchange for my stay ;)

If you’re in the central Lima area stop by for a refreshing pisco sour haha… 

Cheers! and as always, a healthy sense of adventure!